Sunday, March 6, 2016

Kill walls and players

This week is just a small update. I added a level which incorporates kill walls, which are a wall type that I made a few weeks ago but never implemented. I realized in making this new level that I might want to figure out what I want to happen when the player dies *and* completes the level at the same time. For now, I've just made it difficult for the player to die and simultaneously complete the level.

I also know that I want to do away with timed walls. Instead, I should just make a "Timer" script that is able to call methods and change properties on given objects. That way I can continue to make timed walls, but I don't have to make *new* timed walls if I wanted to make, say, timed warp walls or timed bounce walls. Or even timed enemies. I can also have one timer be in charge of multiple objects. This way, I'll always know that two or more timed objects remain in sync with one another (currently, the two timed walls in level 10 sometimes become desynchronized).

Finally, I want to create switches which the player can flip by charging through. Three is often a magic number, and if I created switches then I would have switches, timers, and movement as three modifiers that can be applied to walls and enemies. I would also have bounce, warp, and wrap walls as three objects which help the player. And enemies, default walls, and kill walls are three types of obstacles. Finally, regular goals, linked goals, and enemies are three types of goals. Helping objects, hindering objects, and goals, with modifiers which can mutate all of the above. Once I have switches, I might be satisfied with features, and start rebuilding and re-editing levels.

Or maybe I end up not liking how switches play. That could happen too. Anyway, timers and switches will hopefully happen by next week.

Oh, and as always, the charging-up noise is by Javier Zumer, is being used under this license, and has been edited by me.